


it's just as well (i can't be lonely)

by murphysarc



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Death, Feelings and stuff, Groundhog Day, Guardian Angels, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, but it's more twisted than that, so murphy is sort of bellamy's guardian angel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 01:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphysarc/pseuds/murphysarc
Summary: they are, quite literally, locked together in time. if someone were to ask murphy what kind of future he saw for himself, ‘guardian angel’ would not have been a response and yet - here he is.or, bellamy keeps dying, resetting time until murphy saves his life. title from “so soon” by marianas trench. canon compliant, except for all the death.





	it's just as well (i can't be lonely)

**Author's Note:**

> am i supposed to be writing that multi chap? yes.

**i.**

The first time it happens, Murphy’s listening to Mbege drone on and on about some girl who has caught his eye, when the world freezes and then it is not like how it was.

One second, Murphy’s staring right in the center of Mbege’s face, but then it is gone. All he sees is white, in every which way, so bright that it causes a ringing in his ears and a pounding in his head - 

His eyes open to the metallic walls of his room. The clock across the room tells him it’s 12:00am. He himself is lying in his bed, beads of sweat on his forehead indicating that he’s been doing something other than sleeping. 

It’s a dream. It  _ was _ a dream. He doesn’t think anything of it.

Instead, Murphy closes his eyes to let sleep embrace him until he rises at precisely 8:54am. He’s so warmly greeted by his mother lying on the couch, snoring, a half empty bottle in her right hand. As he closes the door, it falls to the floor and shatters. 

“John,” an older man says to him as they pass, nodding in his direction. He was a friend of his father’s, but Murphy can’t remember a name attached to the face. “You hear about the election results?”

“Sure did,” Murphy replies. “Real fascinating.” The conversation ends there. It could have continued, but Murphy chose to walk right past the man instead of waiting for a response. 

It continues in a dismally normal fashion. As he passes a corridor, he hears shouts that stand out from the regular machine hum, but he chooses to ignore them. Mbege runs into him a short time later. Murphy puts any irregularities out of his mind.

“Hey, listen to this,” Mbege says as they stop to lean against the walls of a corner, tucked away at the very back of the Ark. “There’s this girl down the hall from me, right?  _ Totally _ into me.”

Murphy chuckles, but then stops. “Wait, didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“Uh, no. I would have remembered seeing someone that hot before.”

Murphy’s forehead wrinkles, vaguely remembering the details of the “dream” from the night before. Mbege had said that exact line, he’s sure of it - but then again, maybe he’s making it up - 

A wave of white roars in his ears. The world fades, the buzzing grows, until the clock across his room reads 12:00am and he does it all over again.

Murphy moves through the motions, numb, as the bottle falls from his mother’s right hand and the man says hello and he hears shouts and Mbege brags - 

And then it is 12:00am, and he is no longer dreaming.

Murphy’s got no idea  _ what _ he’s supposed to do, but he knows from old folklore and stories that things like this happen because a person has to complete a task. At least, he hopes that’s why this is happening. There are many other alternatives he does not care to explore.

This time, the fifth - maybe sixth - time around, Murphy stops when he hears shouts and changes his direction to walk towards them. The sounds take him to another living area, where a teenager, maybe a few years older than himself, stands in front of a door, yelling at two guards.

“Mr. Blake,” one of the guards is saying, hand on his firearm, “this is a  _ routine _ inspection. You have to let us inside.”

The teenager’s face is full of contained fear and confusion as he shakes his head. “I’m telling you, you can’t go in there. Not right now.”

Murphy watches for a while as the situation continues to escalate, until the second guard says, “Then we’ll have to arrest you and  _ then _ do the inspection.”

“You can’t. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“You’re prohibiting high ranking officials from doing their job.”

“I’m  _ not _ -”

The first guard takes full hold of his pistol, raising it to the teenager’s eyes. “You’re resisting arrest, is what you’re doing.”

“ _ Please _ -”

Murphy can tell the trigger is about to be pulled, and he really should run the opposite way and never think about this ever again - he’s got  _ way _ bigger problems, like being stuck on an infinite time loop - but there is something about the pain in the boy’s features that forces him out of hiding.

“Hey!” Murphy yells, holding up his hands in surrender. “Unauthorized use of a firearm on the Ark is illegal, you know.”

“Who the hell are you?” the second guard snaps, but the first guard lowers the gun from the distraction. 

“Does it matter?” Murphy replies. “I’m someone who will report you to Kane, that’s who.”

The first guard is seething, but he steps back. “Fine. But we’ll be back  _ with _ a direct order to search your quarters, Blake. We’re not done here.”

“Of course, sir,” the boy says. He waits until the two guards have left before turning to look Murphy in the eyes. “Thank you. I’m Bellamy.”

But Murphy is already turning around and leaving, listening only to make sure the boy had entered his quarters to deal with whatever mess he was in before exiting the area completely.

Later, Mbege would find him and tell him  _ all _ the details about the girl down the hall, and Murphy would have to live out the rest of the day. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but Bellamy’s a part of it. He doesn’t know how that makes him feel, either.

 

**ii.**

It doesn’t happen again until he’s strapped in the dropship, watching as idiots around him take off their restraints and float. Sure, zero gravity was pretty cool, but Murphy would very much prefer to keep his brains inside his skull should the inevitable happen, and they crash.

Maybe it would be better that than the radiation killing them, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.

None other than Bellamy Blake stands a mere foot in front of him, eyes more wild than their other chance meeting. He’s dressed in a guard uniform. The way he’s standing clearly says he’s guilty of something, but they all are. 

The dropship, inevitably, crashes. Murphy gets one glance of Bellamy sprawled on the floor, brains very much  _ not _ in his skull, before the world turns a vibrant white and he returns back to his cell in the Skybox, still stuck on the Ark.

So that’s it, then. If Bellamy dies, Murphy’s time resets until he doesn’t. It’s amazing that Murphy’s as fine with it as he is, but he always knew the universe was one big cosmic joke, forcing the criminal to save the life of the guard.

The second time around, Murphy un-does his harness just enough to grab Bellamy’s hand and pull him into the seat next to him, conveniently vacated by one of the idiots floating in the air above them. Bellamy nods shakily, grateful, as he does the restraints. 

The dropship still crashes, Bellamy lives, and - hopefully - they all live happily ever after.

 

**iii.**

“You saved my life,” Bellamy will say later that day. 

“I didn’t want to deal with the mess,” Murphy will reply, but maybe there’s something more to it. 

 

**iv.**

The more Murphy watches Bellamy from afar, the more colour seeps into the world, and the more terrifying it is when it all drains away to a deep, deep white.

 

**v.**

Charlotte kills Bellamy, because he is the leader, and because she feels more alone than the rest of them. Murphy sees it happen, and though he lets out a scream as Bellamy falls to the forest floor, he knows he must wait.

Time resets, as it always does, to the start of the day. He knows that Charlotte will stop at nothing to see Bellamy dead. Even if he prevents this one instance, she will try again, and again, and she’s only  _ nine _ , no one will believe she’s guilty of more than existing - 

Murphy grabs his knife and sneaks into Charlotte’s tent, ready to murder her, ready to do what he must, but he can’t. He watches her small face for a solid hour, maybe more, knife in his hand. She doesn’t stir. He can’t bring himself to end her small breaths.

Instead, when she wakes and meets his gaze in a quick, surprised motion, he says, “I know you want to kill Bellamy.”

She opens her mouth as if to scream, but he holds up the knife, and she thinks better of it. “I know you do,” he repeats, “but I have a proposition for you.”

Later, he’ll leave the tent feeling more nauseous than before. He’s done a terrible thing, a calculating thing, but he can’t find another alternative. For some ungodly reason, the universe needs Bellamy Blake to live - maybe he agrees with the universe on this one - and Murphy can’t find another way to make sure this happens.

Later, Charlotte will murder Wells Jaha as Murphy suggested, using the knife that he left behind for her. She’ll feel satisfied about it, content, and she’ll let Bellamy live. It will have to be this way.

Except - 

Later, Clarke finds Wells’ body  _ and _ the knife that the stupid, idiotic girl didn’t keep with her. “You murderer!” the crowd screams at him, and he falls, down the hill and to the ground and into the noose.

“You murderer!” the crowd screams, as Bellamy kicks the bucket, and his life almost ends.

It’s not as if he blames any of them. He’d have done the same.

But here’s the thing - 

As Clarke frees him, as Charlotte confesses, he knows he must be louder. He must be brassy, obnoxious, everything that he hates to become. He must be these things so he is a target, so Bellamy is not. 

It’s remarkably mature of him. He’d probably be more impressed, except he was almost hanged and he still can’t breathe.

 

**vi.**

He’s banished, sure, but he stays lurking in the trees because Bellamy’s a bumbling idiot who can’t stay alive for more than a few seconds without his help.

He hates it. He loves it. He  _ doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing about it -  _

 

**vii.**

Bellamy is killed by grounders at dusk, so Murphy makes sure he’s taken in his place. He does not die, instead, he lands three days of torture in their main camp.

He figures, at the end of the third day, that he does not have a guardian angel. It makes sense. Guardian angels don’t  _ get _ angels. 

No, he only has a devil on his shoulder, and it is laughing.

 

**viii.**

Bellamy is stabbed. Murphy pushes him out of the way.

Bellamy falls off the cliff. Murphy secures the rope much tighter.

Bellamy is shot. Murphy directs Finn’s gun the other way.

It’s not much. It’s never enough for the next time, but it’s got to be enough for now because he doesn’t know what he’s  _ doing _ outside of this. 

 

**ix.**

He wonders, sometimes, if his life wasn’t devoted to preserving Bellamy’s, who would he be?

Would he like that person, or - 

well - 

would he not?

 

**x.**

He’s losing it. 

The world turns white at the worst moments. Sometimes, he’s not sure if it’s real or if he’s imagining it happen once more. The ringing in his ears never dies down. Bellamy continues to distrust him.

“I don’t  _ trust _ you,” Clarke says to him plainly, and if she thinks so, than Bellamy must agree. They’re a package deal, it seems.

“I don’t care,” he says. He’s a convincing liar, it seems.

 

**xi.**

He’s given up everything for the love of his life and there’s no way that he can ever know.

 

**xii.**

Murphy doesn’t have love. He doesn’t know love. He’s not  _ meant _ to know love.

If he were, he’d be able to settle down for once and confess his emotions instead of living in eternal fear that time will reset before he gets to open his mouth.

 

**xiii.**

“Murphy, you only care about  _ yourself _ !”

He’s lost it.

“Oh, I only care about myself?” he’s screaming, getting in Bellamy’s face because he probably won’t remember in the morning. “You so  _ sure _ about that?”

The silence is so telling it causes the pounding in his skull to grow. 

“I’ve done  _ everything _ for you! I gave up  _ myself _ for you! Without me, you’d be lying dead in a ditch somewhere. No - without me, you’d be another body floating in space, shot in the head by some guard on the Ark. Do you even know that?”

Silence, all telling, all consuming.

“Do you even  _ know _ what I’ve given up for you? I haven’t lived a second in peace since I figured out what - you know what? It doesn’t even matter. I only care about myself, huh?”

He steps closer. Rage boils out of him, corrupting the stillness of the room. “I guess you’ll find out about that.”

He holds Bellamy against him. A knife is drawn from his back pocket and it slides into Bellamy’s heart, clean and simple, quick and smooth. The devil on his shoulder grows still.

He lets Bellamy’s body go, lets the knife go, and holds up his hands in surrender. “Well?” he yells. “Let’s go, then.”

Yet - 

There is no overpowering white that comes to take his senses. The pounding of his head stills, only to be replaced by the pounding of his heart.

“No,” he whispers. “No, no, no. No way. Not now. Not after  _ everything _ \- I can’t - I did -  _ no! _ ”

He’ll drop to his knees, he’ll hold Bellamy’s lifeless body against his own, he’ll cry until the morning hours when he is found and still, he’ll howl.

There is no white that comes to take him away. There never will be. Instead, there will be an overpowering grey that will fill his vision until the day Murphy will meet his own absolution.

At least he was right about the universe being a cosmic joke. He just never imagined he’d be the punchline.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry, the old me can't come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, because school's started...
> 
> anyways hope that was a decent thing! or really, just a thing. anyways. love u lots! bye now <3


End file.
